This is the type of argument you make when you are a fool but educated.

Destroying or removing the structures eliminates opportunities for productively using our past. Critical contextualization is the better alternative. This would be a complex process, drawing on the skills and judgment of historians, artists, urban planners and a good cross-section of local residents. Much could be added: plaques concerning the war itself, disputes over slavery, Richmond’s and Virginia’s roles in the Confederacy, Reconstruction (and its abrupt termination following the 1876 election deal), African-American disenfranchisement, the blatant racism surrounding the statues’ planning and dedication.

The league of distinguished experts will come up with a really complicated rationalization to keep Confederate monuments, because all these artists, historians, urban planners are experts. Removing Confederate monuments are the ideas of the great unwashed.

Also, there is a slur on those who simply want to remove the monuments. They are called "iconoclasts."